It would not seem possible to say with any degree of certainty that the action carried out in the days that have just passed by Prigozhin can correspond, in its substance, to a political crisis that can really be defined as such to the detriment of Vladimir Putin, who, during the his quarter century as leader of Russia has certainly had to face and resolve critical issues.

At present, it would not seem like a setback to the legitimacy of Putin's unchallenged power, for the simple fact that the insurrection of the head of Wagner, which to define extemporaneous is really the least, does not seem to have succeeded in weakening, nor will it weaken, in the future next, the head of the Kremlin. Indeed, with good likelihood, the circumstance, also in consideration of the methods of development, would seem to have generated an internal mechanism for the reconstitution and confirmation of a leadership never fully questioned by the apparatuses and/or by the civilian population.

The desire to trace, in the action carried out by the head of Wagner, the elements of an open challenge to Vladimir Putin seems extremely imaginative, if only for the context in which that same action seems to have begun and, subsequently, to soon, it would wear out. Since, within living memory, never before, it had been possible to witness such an unusual event, to have occurred within a highly authoritarian country, so the mere fact that a handful of mercenaries became lawful to face hard-nosed with the defense staff, would seem to have been enough to disorient the West, which remained to watch with bated breath an "internal affair", with indefinite contours. But what could all this actually mean?

Beyond the most banal reading that can be offered, which is also the most comfortable one, i.e. the very unrealistic one of a weakening of the Supreme Head of the Kremlin, what can be deduced from the insurrectionist-like "phenomenon"? Can it be defined in terms of open confrontation aimed at Vladimir Putin?

What were Prigozhin's intentions, evidently probably not achieved, that everything would seem to have shown to be anything but an authentic strategist? Let's be clear: the latest events, beyond any plausible interpretation which, in any case, do not seem to be able to pass through the narrative of the beginning of the end of Putin, would seem to have been useful in highlighting the probable tactical unpreparedness of the West in the face of events and scenarios that could contemplate a break in the status quo, both of a territorial nature and of leadership.

Which would seem to raise a further question: what would Russia be like without Vladimir Putin? What would Europe be like without Vladimir Putin's control over the Russian Federation? What repercussions could the eventual, and still distant, dismissal of Putin have, if ever there will be? The unknown factor would lead one to favor the preservation of the status quo, at least at the internal level of Russia. Otherwise, if we wanted to reason differently, it would not be possible to understand (and the hypothesis has only an argumentative value), if not from the point of view of an operation agreed between the same Head of Wagner and Vladimir Putin, because the former, i.e. Prigozhin, having arrived undisturbed (and this circumstance already appears at least unusual) just two hundred kilometers from Moscow, he wanted to stop the march of his convoys and communicate that the soldiers would return to their usual base. In the eyes of the layman, and wanting to use a little malice, the circumstance could (and we emphasize the could) probably appear as an attempt by Russian intelligence to be able to "appreciate" the reactions of the West to the news of the possible "fall" of the tsar, as Vladimir Putin is often referred to. And if this were really the case, Vladimir Putin could have understood that, compared to a hypothetical Russian leadership based on unknown factors, at present, his stay in the Kremlin would probably seem preferable. The conditional is a must because clearly we are moving in the field of hypotheses.

In any case, Prigozhin's full awareness would also seem to emerge, in the context of the factual circumstance of reference, that any realistic attempt to conquer a city like Moscow, characterized by a very high degree of loyalty towards the authorities, and armored from a military point of view, it would have tasted like an attempt bordering on madness, like a Kamikaze to put it colloquially. Russia still remains a nuclear power, and its destabilization would open up complex scenarios that the West does not seem capable of dealing with. In any case, whatever ideological speculation one intends to conduct on this (apparent) rebellion, everything, at present, would seem to suggest that Putin's power has emerged from it as anything but weakened. The story, in its semantic complexity, and in its results, at least immediate, would seem to have demonstrated the centrality of the figure of Putin on the internal and international scene. At this point, and if we really wanted to change the status quo, it would probably be necessary for the entire West to change its point of approach to the Russo-Ukrainian affair, given that, until now, it has thought it could solve it only on the military level, that is, facing Russia in a field, the armed one, in which, even if we concede anything, the Western paradigm itself would seem less prepared.

In the meantime, because the so-called "univocal thought" which can be subsumed into a single criterion of evaluation and choice, that of war, would seem to place in nothingness, as in fact it seems to have placed in nothingness, every desirable hypothesis of negotiation, every prospect of an agreed truce , any possibility of conflict resolution that can be said to be different from military victory. Therefore, because the West, in supporting only the bellicose dimension of the conflict, involving the anything but implicit acceptance of more and more victims, would seem to want to reach the total and definitive extremity of the conflict without probably fully reflecting on the potential consequences of a military action carried out up to the extreme consequences, that is carried out up to the achievement, if ever there will be, of the end of the world in opposing blocs as it currently still is, with all consequences in terms of further structures that could come to be designed even in the meantime.

Finally, because, it seems illusory to say the least, for the West in its complex entirety, that even today we can yearn to "win" an armed war to the detriment of any useful attempt to pursue peace, which, if we look closely, it should be built day after day with the precise and willing determination to achieve it, with every possible political and diplomatic effort. Let's be clear: it would not necessarily be a matter of establishing who can be said to be the strongest, it would rather be a matter of understanding that the arms race cannot be the answer, if by answer we wanted to understand the construction of a new and unprecedented order, because if the military one seems be the field of election of Vladimir Putin, the diplomatic one should be the field of election of the European and international powers.

Responding to arms only with arms means accepting that the field of confrontation is precisely that of Vladimir Putin, and therefore accepting to place oneself, in good probability, in a condition, if not of minority, in any case of weakness in terms of efficiency of interventions.

Diplomacy, even more so after Prigozhin's action, seems to be considered the only true decisive weapon. Especially given the fact that Vladimir Putin seems to be, after all, still firmly anchored in his command post, and not at all willing to leave it.

Giuseppina Di Salvatore – Lawyer, Nuoro

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